Tattletale Saints

Folk duo Cy Winstanley (guitar and vocals) and Vanessa McGowan (bass and vocals), known as the Tattletale Saints, won the New Zealand Music Award for Folk Album of the Year (2014) with their album How Red Is the Blood. After having listened to the album a handful of times in its entirety, I can fully understand why they were given that particular distinction.
Judging by the twelve songs which make up the whole of the Tattletale Saints' How Red Is the Blood, these two Kiwi expatriates based in Nashville, Tennessee, seem to avoid overly complicated music and overkill. Strings and voices mark these rich songs with subtle yet captivating arrangements, beautiful vocals and quality lyrics. Winstanley picks and strums his acoustic guitar while McGowan pulls and thumps on the thick strings of her upright bass, and both sing, sometimes alone, sometimes together.

There is a timeless quality to the Tattletale Saints music, simultaneously classic roots and modern revival, placing them alongside the more notable artists of today's scene. There are elements of folk, good old Appalachia style music, and a splash of country in their sound, too, which they do exceedingly well. And this all comes together to create well-written songs with stirring vocals.

Of the twelve tracks on How Red Is the Blood the two that standout for me are the strong folk piece "Complicated Man," a song about Hank Williams titled "Hank," and the jazzy closer "At Last." - nodepression.com

Acoustic Guitar Magazine - September 2014

Kiwi duo wraps dark matters in beautiful organic folk songs.

Tattletale Saints’ mournful acoustic guitars, upright bass, and smart rhymes netted the duo New Zealand’s award for best folk album of 2014, and it’s easy to see why. Singer Cy Winstanley’s clear, confident tenor and front porch-like strumming meshes beautifully and organically with Vanessa McGowan’s elastic bass, making the 12 tracks on How Red Is the Blood eddy like autumn leaves on the surface of a gently flowing stream. Yet churning beneath the ebullient and wistful melodies are currents of righteous anger.

The smooth, Brill Building-like pop of “Kathleen” is a rollicking tale of feckless love until the scorpion’s sting of psychosis appears at the end. Likewise, beneath the sparkling gypsy-jazz gloss of “Doctor Doctor” are jabs at the pharmaceutical industry’s sapping of a generation’s vitality. And the soulless protagonist in the cantering acoustic story-song “Complicated Man” rapes the environment before slipping “sweetly to sleep.”

Not all of the songs are cocktails laced with carbolic. The windswept “We’ve Got Lakes” weighs a fading love affair against the glory of nature. And the Appalachian reel “Jessica on Prairie Legs” bounds off producer Tim O’Brien’s sweet, though plaintive fiddle. Winstanley’s guitars, including a 1943 Gibson J-45 and a 1937 Martin 00-18, ring with gentle, windchime clarity. McGowan provides punctuated vocal harmonies, stepping to the front on a cover of Etta James’ signature tune “At Last,”
which shimmers like an Indian summer after noon. On such moments Tattletale Saints ratchet back their impulse for outrage served with a spoonful of Americana sugar. Yet their knife edge still hews to folk’s clarion call to challenge injustice, and it still cuts to the bone.

-P.M.

AcousticGuitar.com - Acoustic Guitar Magazine

"Kathleen," the lead track off of the Tattletale Saints' debut album, is love at first listen.

The duo have an uncanny chemistry, not unlike the Civil Wars (though hopefully with much more longevity.) The New Zealander duo actually met in London and now call Nashville home. The album was helmed by bluegrass legend Tim O'Brien, though it has an overall jazzy feel.

Bassist and vocalist Vanessa McGowan is nothing less than sublime, though Cy Wynstanley's warm, gritty voice brings her closer to the mortal realm. Their unhurried arrangements will immediately win you over. This isn't just music you sit and listen to -- it's meant to be listened to on a porch in the corner of your local watering hole (not the divey one, the one you'd take your family to.)

For me, the standout song is "Molly" -- a song about a once-in-a-lifetime love, Wynstanley's poetic bent shines. It's easily the best song of the year. - Adobe and Teardrops

With only one album to date, the New Zealand duo of Cy Winstanley and Vanessa McGowan have made quite a name for themselves as Tattletale Saints. Their debut, How Red is the Blood, recently won the New Zealand Music Award for Folk Album of the Year 2014.

On How Red is the Blood, Winstanley (guitar, vocals) and McGowan (bass, vocals) have made a quiet folk album that quickly brings to mind Paul Simon with touches of The Byrds (“We’ve Got Lakes”), Rolling Stones (“Complicated Man”) and a nod to country music forebearer, Hank Williams. Travelers in their own right, Winstanley and McGowan previously worked together in a London band before returning to their native New Zealand to form Tattletale Saints. Venturing to Nashville to record How Red is the Blood, the roots of Tattletale Saints’ brand of Americana show through.

I will sing Hank Williams’ songs
They must be right cos honey he ain’t wrong
Jesus must have taught that boy to play
Let it soak into my blood
Then baby I can feel the love
That taught a million people how to sing

Behind the light acoustic touch of Winstanley and McGowan are dense lyrics that jump to capture one’s ear:

The BBC they got it wrong
It rained the whole damn weekend long
The building leaked like a waterfall
Now it smells like a feral dog

Largely serving as Winstanley’s foil, McGowan comes center on the aptly-titled closing track, “At Last.” Beautiful in its simplicity, the song rejoices in love found and punctuates How Red is the Blood as deserving of the accolades it has thus far earned. - Bucket Full Of Nails

New Zealand artists Cy Winstanley (guitar, vocals) and Vanessa McGowan (bass, vocals) took a long, winding path to become the Americana roots duo Tattletale Saints, and that shows in the music on their debut full-length album, How Red Is The Blood. Both met in a jazz big band–Vanessa actually has a Masters of Jazz Bass from University of Nevada, Las Vegas–but were drawn together over a shared love of American roots music. Both come from New Zealand, but have traveled all over and actually formed their first Americana band in London. Now they’ve returned to New Zealand to form the critically acclaimed roots duo Tattletale Saints. With the help of a successful crowd funding campaign, Tattletale Saints were able to travel to Nashville to record their new album at Butcher Shoppe Recording Studios (part-owned by John Prine and the birthplace of many of Johnny Cash’s hit records). Tim O’Brien jumped on board to produce the album, bringing his experience as a Grammy-award winning Americana tastemaker and joining in on fiddle and mandolin as well. The result is an album that joins the beautiful simplicity of American roots music with hard-biting songs that echo a generation’s distress.
On their new album, the effortless, effusive nature of Tattletale Saints’ songs cleverly disguise the subversiveness of the lyrics. “Doctor, Doctor” sounds for all the world like a breezy jazz song, and Cy’s vocals could fit well in any jazz club today. But the lyrics speak to the harm that prescription drugs have wreaked on an aging generation held in the grip of huge pharmaceutical corporations. “Kathleen” is perhaps the catchiest song on the album and sounds like a lovely heartfelt folk song written for young love, but the song flips into deep darkness on the last verse, warped by the danger of unexamined love. The song “Fell Upon the Fields” is anchored by a cheerful fiddle melody (played by Tim O’Brien) and is written almost like an old cowboy ballad. But the lyrics are born from the dreariness of a London winter (a city that Cy called home for 7 years, some of which as a busker on the underground) and the hopelessness of a disaffected generation. As the singer reflects through the London fog to his fantasies of life out on the Western plains, you realize that the song itself is the fantasy; a sunny ranch hand melody desperately needed to brighten a young man’s dark day. Tattletale Saints love contrasting opposites, and many of their songs play with elements of light and dark, both in the melodies and in the songwriting.
There may be a temptation to label Tattletale Saints as just another young folk band singing the same old songs, another cog in the Americana wheel, but this would be a grave mistake. Tattletale Saints makes music that lures you in with its familiarity, but stabs deep as a knife. It’s the perfect example of the folk music of a new generation: bitter and furious at the state of the world, but unable to let go of its love for the roots of American music and the hopefulness of true folk songs. - Hearth Music

“Intelligent, entertaining and thoroughly captivating” Sing Out! Magazine, March 2014 - Sing Out! Magazine

"There is something utterly beguiling about a musician armed with a guitar and a suitcase full of memories, which need little or no adornment. There’s nowhere to hide, the voice has to engage you and the songs have to have substance. That's the natural, unadulterated beauty of Tattletale Saints debut album.
Cy Winstanley has the rich voice and lyric instincts of a Paul Simon and his foil, the equally talented Vanessa McGowan adds lovely punctuation harmonies and the sort of swinging bass lines that you'd expect from a jazz musician." 4.5/5 Mike Alexander, Sunday Star Times 17/04/13
- Mike Alexander, Sunday Star Times 17/04/13

"sensitively understated folk and subtle simplicity… songs as memorable, lyrically considered and melodically engaging as many of Paul Simon's… a very emotionally engaging album" Graham Reid, elsewhere.co.nz (How Red Is the Blood review) - How Red Is the Blood review, elsewhere.co.nz

Cy is a beautiful singer, melodic yet conversational, and a vocal resemblance to Paul Simon is only heightened by the ambitiousness of his songwriting… in the unadorned setting of the duo it becomes clear how complete that talent is.
Nick Bollinger - How Red Is the Blood review, The Listener, New Zealand April 2013

Cy is a beautiful singer, melodic yet conversational, and a vocal resemblance to Paul Simon is only heightened by the ambitiousness of his songwriting… in the unadorned setting of the duo it becomes clear how complete that talent is.
Nick Bollinger - How Red Is the Blood review, The Listener, New Zealand April 2013

"Their songs are as pretty and romantic as the Southern Cross itself. Sweetened by Cy’s mellifluous delivery and double bass player Vanessa McGowan’s gorgeous harmonies, they sound like love letters between Amy Mann and a slip-sliding Paul Simon." The Crypt Sessions - Crypt Sessions UK

They’re a little bit folky, a little bit country, a touch of bluegrass... But really, they’re Tattletale Saints, and, if you ever get the chance to see and hear them, take it.
Cy is a songwriter of real talent, giving his lyric-heavy compositions strong melodies and real meaning. His clear, high, expressive voice melded perfectly with the sweet tones of Vanessa’s harmonies, never overdoing the double act but using solo voice and harmony to good effect. - Wanganui Chronicle, New Zealand

Winstanley is “a potent songwriter with a voice gently reminiscent of Paul Simon” while vocalist/bassist McGowan “adds beguiling harmonies” - Uncut Magazine UK

"delightful album...hooks you in with melodies and keeps you there by virtue of the words...very sharp stuff". - Elsewhere.co.nz

AM Radio, 2009 ""a masterful blend of Americana fused with jazz, soul and pop" - www.musiccritic.co.uk